vocational game-changer with an innovative approach

Eden Career Institute was founded by Dr. Bill Winston, who was inspired by Booker T. Washington’s educational philosophy emphasizing entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency, has opened its doors in Chicago and online. The institute takes an innovative approach to vocational training by working directly with employers first to identify needed skills, rather than following the traditional education-then-placement model. Their focus is on addressing the skills gap in vocations, noting that certain trades such as plumbing and electrical work will always require human expertise.

Eden Career Institute offers on-site apprenticeship programs and online courses, serving the Chicagoland area and beyond. Their mission centers on combining education with employment opportunities to create pathways out of poverty and build a lasting economic legacy in our communities.

Monisha J. Brown, associate publisher of rolling out,  speaks with Dr. Kyle, executive director of Eden Career Institute.

Monisha J. Brown: Hi, rolling out family. This is Monisha J. Brown, and I am here with Dr. Kyle from Bill Winston Ministries and the Living Word Christian Center in Chicago. I’m here to talk to Dr. Kyle today about an especially important matter that is needed in our communities, which is dealing with vocational training, citizen reentry, skills-based apprenticeships and jobs. They are doing their part in the community. We get a lot of questions about resources; Dr. Kyle is here today to talk to us about the great work they are doing at the Eden Career Institute. Dr. Kyle, welcome to rolling out.

Dr. Kyle: Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

Monisha J. Brown: How did the Eden Career Institute come about? What is the why?

Dr. Kyle: Well, it is an interesting story. I am glad you are asking because so many times people do not know why an entity is in existence. As you mentioned, Dr. Bill Winston is the senior pastor of Living Word Christian Center, and he had a vision to open a vocational skills center or trade school that would teach people how to be self-producers.
He’s from Tuskegee, Alabama, and he’s very much a believer and an advocate of the Booker T. Washington way of educating people, which is entrepreneurship and the ability to supply things for themselves, their families and their community.

He talks a lot about indescribable and invaluable skills that people can use to move themselves into those spaces. He was thinking about how to better serve Chicago. He is a pastor, and he is a businessman. He’s all about job opportunities and economic development. He was thinking about how to best get people the skills they need to be employed. Employment is the pathway for many people to get out of poverty. Education is also especially important. So, when you combine those two, you give people the education to get employed. Then, they can move forward and provide that legacy. That is our why.

Eden Career Institute is postured to assist people in the Chicagoland area and abroad because we have online and on-site programs. Like most metropolitan areas, we see gaps. People are left behind or simply need to understand how to move forward. That is what we are focused on at the Eden Career Institute.

Monisha J. Brown: I love it. I love it because you are all very intentional about solving a socioeconomic problem. What takes place at the Eden Career Institute? Let us say I am not interested in college or I’m fearful of tests. What does the institute entail? What does programming look like at Eden?

Dr. Kyle: I will talk about our apprenticeship programs first because that is the one that I think will be easier for people to understand, at least right now, and I will talk about the online programs as well because that’s an option.

With our apprenticeship programs, we look at the end goal, right? We look at where you want to be employed. We work with employers first, which is different than most schools. Most schools educate you and then, as you matriculate towards the end, they do career planning and placement. That is the traditional way to help someone get a job when they graduate. We work in reverse. We go after the companies, and we find out what skills the employer needs you to have. We ask the employer, ‘What kind of employees do you need to hire right now to move your products or your services forward?’ We operate from that perspective.

There are many trades that people have been doing for years and are maturing out of; they are retiring. We have not replenished those supplies in the ways that we should have along the way. Somewhere along the way, vocational education began to be looked at as secondary. The perception is, if you don’t go to college then do this— as if it is a put down. But in actuality, our country cannot survive without tradesmen and tradeswomen.

Think about it. You can never optimize or use artificial intelligence (AI) to have a plumber or an electrician. That is not going to happen. We talk to people who say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to go to school for four years.’ We ask them, ‘What do you want to do? I’m sure you want to work, right?’ We tell them, ‘If you are going to have a quality career, you are going to need some education. You cannot bypass the education.’

We offer apprenticeships that provide training and employment. We work in collaboration with the company that is already committed to hiring Eden’s students and paying for their training. Now, the student will have a job; so, we can take that off the table. Eden’s students do not have to take out student loans or worry about not having employment.

If a student wants to go into robotics, for example, we have an employer in place that will hire them. While they are working a 40-hour week for the company, they are receiving income, benefits and paid training. The programs tend to be 1 or 2 years.

We look at Eden Career Institute like a family. We do wraparound services with our students. We walk through the process with them. There is never a time when they are out there on their own. From the moment they apply with us, we bring them into the family. We assess their housing, transportation and daycare needs. If a candidate has mental or emotional needs, we address those as well.

We are people of faith. So, if a candidate needs prayer, we are going to pray, too. We are with them on the journey, in every step, because their success is our success. We are not just handing them off to an employer. We also pre-screen employers that want our students; it is a cooperative environment.

Monisha J. Brown: What if I have a not-so-clean background? How can Eden Career Institute help me get placed?

Dr. Kyle: Well, we do work with several different populations that might fit that category. You might be someone who dropped out of high school, right? We do encourage you because you must have a GED or a high school diploma and be at least 18 years old to start our program. If you do not have a high school diploma or GED, then we will refer you to different programs to get that done first. That is a requirement.

If you’ve been out of school for a while because perhaps you were formerly incarcerated and now you are a re-entering citizen, it could be quite challenging to get a job. Every place you go, that background keeps you down even after you have served your time. And I’m always like, if they served their time, please stop criminalizing them. They are done with that, especially if they are someone who wants a different life. They have learned their lesson. They have given themselves time to mature, to understand that their previous way of life was not getting them where they needed to be and landed them in the criminal justice system.

Now, we need to work with them to move forward and provide their families with a different lifestyle. We don’t want them to return to what they were already doing, which got them put in jail in the first place. We want them to do something else.

At the Eden Career Institute, we do not count their background against them. We do conduct a background check and drug test because it is required. We are a certified program through the Department of Labor. We cannot avoid those tests. We disclose to the candidates, upfront, that we are not counting that against you, and neither are the employers. We only work with employers who will not count their backgrounds against them. We are passionate about reentry citizens because they get such a hard rap.

Monisha J. Brown: Exactly. Wow! Thank you for that. This service is definitely needed in our community because it sounds like it is a bridge. It helps bridge from where you are to where you want to be. You all are removing some of the barriers to employment. How can someone get involved with the Eden Career Institute?

Dr. Kyle: We have a website. You can go to edencareerinstitute.com. On our website, you can read all about our onsite programs if you are in the Chicagoland area. You can also read about our online programs, which are self-paced. We created online programs on purpose because some candidates work full-time, are in between careers, or have a schedule that doesn’t allow them to be in place.

Several trades are needed today that are conducted online, like cybersecurity. That’s a big thing. We offer AI pathways. We have IT network security professionals, bookkeeping and other online opportunities for obtaining a certificate.

Go to our website and apply online. Our applications are free, and they are easy to complete. You upload your transcript, and we move forward from there. We try to make it as easy as possible.

Monisha J. Brown: Dr. Kyle, thank you so much for allowing us to be part of telling the story and to share the information with our audience. Thank you, The Living Word Christian Center and the Winston Family, for the work you are doing in the community to solve for our social problems. You all are just stellar.

Dr. Kyle: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Monisha J. Brown: You are welcome.